Chapter 2

Hatter awoke slowly and met the face of an angry clock staring him down from the bedside table. He sat up, the velvet jacket wrinkled and warm slipping from his arms and onto the bed. He picked up the clock, calculations erupting in his head, and realized that it had now been a whole day since she had left. Twenty seven hours and fifty six minutes since she had whispered what might have been a promise, words that had not stopped spinning through his mind in circles that made him slightly dizzy.

"And lots of other things."

Hatter was no fool. As a red blooded male, he knew what other things could mean. Had occasionally indulged in those other things from time to time. But those other things had always left him with a foul taste in his mouth, like ashes, because the only time anyone in Wonderland indulged in other things was when under the influence of Lust, manufactured and sold in stores everywhere. So Hatter's dalliances were kept few and far between, and those other things had never caused him much thought.

But Alice was a different story altogether. Other things to Alice, while surely encompassing the other things Hatter was aware of, were bound to mean much more than any Wonderlander could fathom. Hope gripped him by the throat and squeezed tight and he was losing air but strangely giddy about the prospect. Oh, how he wanted those other things more than anything! And if there was the slightest chance that Alice really meant what she said about those other things, well, not even the formerly scary fallen Queen of Hearts could stop him.

The bell rang, and Hatter's musings were successfully interrupted. With a grumble of protest, he made his way into his office, shutting the flat door firmly behind him. He had every intention of running the intruder out so he could go back to wondering about other things but when he looked up, Hatter remembered.

The Queen of Hearts couldn't stop him. Jack Heart could.

Jack Heart, now the King of Wonderland, was in the middle of his office, looking remarkably out of place among all the piles of clutter and sprays of colorful vegetation, dressed in a well cut suit and face polished like a gem and hair impeccably combed. Hatter was more than aware of his rumpled appearance, and meekly adjusted his hat before giving up completely.

"What can I do for you, your Majesty?" Hatter mumbled, three parts wary and one part tempted to use his powerful right fist to smash annoyingly perfect Jack Heart's annoyingly perfect face.

Jack Heart didn't say anything for a moment, just watched him, eyes clear as winter glass. He cleared his throat once, and began. "I hear you sold the tea shop."

Hatter shrugged, swallowing hard. "Yeah, I did. Gryphon tell you?"

What may have been a smile tweaked at Jack's mouth. "Gryphon has told everybody he can get his claws into. I'm surprised there wasn't a parade."

Hatter replied with a mocking half smile, but otherwise was not amused. "That's Gryphon for you. Look, your Highness-"

Jack held up a hand, interrupting, "I think we're past all these formalities, Hatter. Jack is fine."

His insides twitched, sour, but Hatter just rolled his eyes and let the King have his way. "Fine. Jack. Look, I know you're not looking to have a soddin' tea party, so why don't you tell me why you've appeared on my former doorstep?"

The question hung in the air, dissolving any pretense of a casual visit, and Hatter could have sighed in relief. He didn't have time to waste fluttering around with paltry society games that Jack Heart had mastered by the time he was teething. No, time was slowly slipping through his fingers and he was damn sure he wasn't going to waste those precious minutes on Alice's former boyfriend, even if he was the ruddy King.

"You're chasing after her, aren't you?" Jack asked, though the chill in his tone, that regal calmness, meant that he already knew the answer.

His right fingers twitched, clenching into a fist, but Hatter just crossed his arms, smirking indolent. "Yeah. What's it to you anyway? You had the girl. You lied to the girl. You lost the girl. Tough luck, mate."

To his credit, Jack remained utterly composed, though if that was from his unfaltering control or that fact that his body was just a well formed husk, empty of any emotion, Hatter couldn't tell. Though his money was on the latter. "If you think," Jack commented, "that it's all that easy to travel through the Looking Glass, you are sorely mistaken. And you have no guarantee that Alice will be receptive to your rather clumsy advances."

Something hot flared in Hatter's throat, making him clench his teeth, making his body quiver from the need to pound Jack Heart's face into the ground. "I'm not like you, King," he bit out, contempt poorly disguised. "You may be willing to let her go without a word, but I'm not. You have wasted," he glanced down at the clock perched on his desk, "thirteen and a half minutes of valuable time that I could have been spending making ready to leave this bollocksed up world. I've stood beside her, endured tortured for her, rescued her, fought for her, nearly died for her, and I'll be bloody well damned if I'm gonna let her go!"

His words echoed loudly, marking the air like a brand, and the silence that followed was hushed with anticipation. It was then Jack Heart did something that Hatter did not expect at all.

"Good." he said, punctuating his words with a nod. "Then I'll help you."